You rebuild trust after layoffs by telling the people who stayed the real reason it happened, having leadership own the decision in public, and keeping every promise you make afterward. In a 2025 survey, 62% of employees said they lost trust in their employer after layoffs, and 71% would start job hunting even if they kept their jobs. Here's why euphemisms make it worse, and what leadership has to change for trust to come back.

The year is 1955. The horrors of the Great Depression and the rattling of WWII are far in the rearview. America is in an economic and cultural boom. You clock in to a union-protected job, come home to a pretty little tract house, picket fence and all. No college degree required. A pension is waiting. Now fast-forward. Student loan debt, gig work classified as "entrepreneurship," and a hybrid data analyst role paying what your grandfather made in 1955. Sound familiar?

Tonight I watched It's a Wonderful Life with my daughter. I normally save it for Christmas Eve. But I'm 13 months post-layoff, rejection deep, and the movie hits differently at this point in my life. Because it's not really a Christmas movie. It's a story about what happens when greed and self-interest are left unchecked – and about community as the only real defense against a capitalist villain who has decided that your survival is not his problem.